


Sex and Candy, Here

by persnickett



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: sexy_right, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-24
Updated: 2011-02-24
Packaged: 2017-10-15 22:19:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/165421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The title pretty much says it.</p><p>Prompt: Matt *really* needs to cut down on the sugar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sex and Candy, Here

Matt needed to cut down on the sugar. Really. It was bad for John’s health.

The holidays were in full swing and it seemed like there was junk food everywhere. It had been a regular Christmas miracle that John had managed to keep the majority of it out of the house -- and out of his mouth -- what with the guys bringing in all their wives’ baking at the precinct.

John did have to admit a weakness for peanut brittle though. And yeah, he might have brought home one of Callaghan’s fruitcakes. Nobody seemed to like fruitcake much but John really kinda dug it, all tasteless jokes aside. He’d heard it wasn’t so bad if you put custard on it like you’re supposed to, but he found pouring a healthy amount of rum over it (or rye, or Jack, or bourbon, for that matter) worked just as well.

So John had his own sweet tooth to contend with sometimes, but Matt? He still had Halloween candy, for fuck’s sake.

John figured he must have bought a case of the stuff, when it was going cheap after November 1st. It was the only explanation, really. John hunted around a little sometimes, but he hadn’t busted the stash yet.

The issue wasn’t so much the effect simple sugars in doses that should have been lethal for most human beings had on Matt’s mood. Although, true, it was a factor. But hell, it couldn’t be healthy. Every time John saw him, the kid had something in his mouth.

On Wednesday, it was Twizzlers.

John walked into Matt’s makeshift office to find him leaned back as far as he could get, in the desk chair he’d insisted John take him out to buy, his very first week in the house.

There was nothing wrong that John could see, with the chair he’d had before. Matt didn’t seem to care that the ‘desk’ was an old card table, in fact he’d just taken it as an excuse to tape bundles of cords and cables down the sides that were thicker than the table legs themselves. But the _chair_ …well, John figured the kid spent enough time in it that it mattered.

And just then he had it facing away from the table; feet planted squarely on the floor and stretched out to his full, lean length with his head tipped backward over the edge of the chair. He was rapidly flicking something that looked like a PEZ dispenser featuring Darth Vader in his hand, and staring upside down at his computer screen, while a slideshow depicting a buxom brunette in various poses flashed across it.

“Hey kid, workin’ hard?” John said, to get his attention.

It was almost a shame to spoil the view, with the way the exposed column of Matt’s throat made a hard, long line -- adam’s apple jutting sharply, hair falling straight back from the roots to swing in midair. His t-shirt pulled high enough to reveal a thin slice of the tight, pale flesh of his belly.

But then Matt’s head snapped forward at the sound of John’s voice, and it was just as good; brown bangs tumbling messily forward into wide, surprised eyes. The long red whip of candy dangling from his teeth and denting into the full lower lip.

“Hey!” Matt greeted him, jaw still clamped down on his liquorice. He chucked the PEZ so he could put his hand to the card table-cum-desk and shove, so that his chair sped across the room on its tiny plastic wheels and managed to perform a hyperactive little spin before stopping right in front of John.

Matt looked at him and bounced the little cord of confection between his teeth a few times before following John’s gaze to his monitor. The one that was currently lit, anyhow.

“Oh, that’s Kim. She saves my screen.”

“Well, hello Kim. And hello Matthew. _Really_ workin’ hard, I see.”

“Yeah well, Kim…does a little more for me than safeguard my pixels. She’s quite the multitalented assistant.” Matt showed no sign of shame for the swollen ridge in his jeans. “And it’s Ms. Kardashian to you.”

He slid his feet apart on the floor, spreading his legs a little wider and insinuating one canvas sneaker in between John’s boots.

John took his cue. He leaned forward and curled his hands over the tops of Matt’s thighs. He kept his grip high enough up to avoid Matt’s knee were it still tingled sometimes, but he dropped his weight enough to pin the kid pretty effectively to the chair.

“Looks like you could use some assistance right now.”

Matt grinned and tugged hard on the candy trailing from his lips. The little recoil on the snap of the chewy red strip was sharp enough to make Matt blink and the tips of his hair jump at his temples.

“Yup,” he agreed, teasing the bitten end of his Twizzler over the line of John’s lips. John shook it off, he had no use for it. He’d be tasting it soon enough. “I’m just _all tied up_ with work right now.”

Turned out the little candy ropes weren’t much good for that. They couldn’t even close one around John’s neck. Matt did manage to loop a couple around his wrists though. …And other things.

**

Thursday, Matt was stretched out on the sofa with his laptop in front of him, propped up on his elbows with his feet in the air, kicking rhythmically like it helped work out some of the tension in his leg.

Or maybe he was just burning off some of the sugar high, because lo and behold, there was a bag of candies next to him on the coffee table. Little red gummy things, shaped like raspberries.

John’s only intention really had been just to regain possession of at least half his sofa, when he nudged Matt’s hips over and sat down on the edge of the cushion. He looked over the top of Matt’s head at his screen, ready to tease him about whatever was playing on it.

There were no Kardashians frolicking on Matt’s computer today, just a bunch of numbers and hash marks that were meaningless to John, but it was still easy to be reminded of their activities the night before. John reached out and rested a hand on Matt’s neck.

“Mmm. Hi,” Matt acknowledged him, without turning around. He tapped a few more numbers and symbols onto his screen. Matt tended to get pretty tense when he worked like this. John put a little pressure into his touch, and Matt rolled his shoulders appreciatively. John would move on to them next. But first he stroked his thumb over the ends of Matt’s hair, and down the little knobs of his vertebrae. When he dipped down under Matt’s collar, he felt goose bumps rising there, and Matt sighed and moved his computer to the coffee table.

Matt didn’t sit still long, for the massage. When he reached for the table again, John expected him to grab his machine and say that he really needed to work, but instead, Matt took more of the little berry candies out of the bag and flipped over on his back to look up at him.

And that’s when John was really done for. Matt popped one of the berries in his mouth and something caught John’s eye. The dye of the candy had stained the inside of Matt’s mouth a vivid red.

Matt was saying something like “that was nice” but John barely heard it. He was too busy staring at that distracting slash of colour. Matt’s tongue was a bright fuchsia, and his teeth stood out, white, against the garish foil. Even the thin inner lining of his lips was an indecent pink.

Matt was smirking and starting to say something else, too, but he never got it out. John was already diving forward to cover Matt’s mouth with his own. He parted Matt’s lips insistently with his, taking advantage of his surprise to delve in and tangle their tongues together. The candy tasted sweet and clear, almost floral -- something like the fruit punch Holly used to make for the kids. John sucked on Matt’s tongue, and took his lower lip between his teeth, half expecting them to feel turgid and swollen the way all that red suggested.

They felt the same as always, though, just like _Matt_. And that was more than fine by John.

**

They call it a laptop, but Matt never seemed to put it on his lap. And a few hours later that night, John found out why.

They were sitting in front of the evening news when John heard Matt huff in frustration. He was balancing his little computer on his knees, but kept restlessly jiggling his legs far too energetically to be able to type effectively on the tiny keyboard. John wasn’t even sure how Matt could read the screen, with the way he had it vibrating like that.

Matt ran through this little cycle several times -- type, huff, backspace, type, jiggle, huff. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Alright. Matt _had_ to have been into more than those little red things.

After a while, Matt eventually gave up on work and came to see what John was doing upstairs, slamming through all the drawers in the bedroom. It was a good thing he did too, because the dull ache in his joints was telling John he probably couldn’t have handled the sofa again.

They got chocolate smeared _everywhere_. The pack of miniature Mars bars had been tucked into the top drawer of the bedside table. They were a bitch to wash out of the sheets, too. Took three runs through the wash, and John could still swear he saw off-colour smudges when he finally got them back on the bed.

**

By Friday, John’s back was really giving him hell.

The bed wasn’t the only place Matt left his mark, either. When John got up to shower, something was creased into his skin, like glue, pulling tight and pinching when he turned his head. There it was, under his ear. He could see it in the mirror, crusted blue with lint from the bed covers. John scratched at it and it flaked off easily enough. The scent of it was acridly sweet.

Caramel. Dammit, Matty.

So really, that damn lollipop is the last thing either of them need.

John tried to ignore it and keep his focus on unloading the dishwasher when Matt bounced into the room, clicking the hard candy on his teeth, and spinning the little stick between his deft, narrow fingers, to twirl the sugary ball over his tongue.

It was that mouth. That mouth of Matt’s. The plump, plushness of his lips, the heat and slick moisture of that tongue, the sweet, syrupy taste of him. Matt drank so much Red Bull John was sure some days there was more jet fuel in his veins than red blood cells. If John hadn’t seen it himself, he’d swear that if you cut him, the kid would bleed yellow instead of red.

John held in a groan as his body responded against his will to the quiet sucking sounds Matt was making. He managed to put three plates safely into the cupboard before he risked a glance over his shoulder at the kid that backfired in a big way. He was stuck for it, now. He couldn’t help watching as Matt popped the sucker out of his mouth, twisting as he went and leaving his lips with a sticky, wet shine.

John shut the dishwasher before he broke something.

They were in the kitchen, which meant standing up, and what was about to go down wasn’t going to be good for John’s shoulder at all.

This was it. Enough. John had already gotten rid of the candy bars, and they’d burned through the rest of little red fruity things yesterday. So to go by the evidence he’d accumulated, John figured he just had the red liquorice and these fuckin’ lollipops left to track down. And dammit, he was gonna find them if it killed him.

 _After_ they finished up here, John thought, as he snaked an arm around Matt’s hips and yanked them flush against his own. Besides, reaching up and plucking the lollipop stick right out of that teasing, smirking mouth absolutely counted as a start.

**

Saturday, Matt was following on his heels as John stomped from room to room of the house with a big plastic garbage bag that was rapidly filling with junk food.

“You totally don’t need to do this.”

Judging by the rug burns on his knees and the chafing in places he’d rather not mention, he actually totally did.

He found the Twizzlers easily enough in Matt’s office, but the lollipops were tougher. They weren’t exactly hidden, in a mug on his ‘desk’, but it was so crowded with computer junk and plastic models of impossibly-proportioned guys in various colours of spandex, that it amounted to the same thing. John wasn’t surprised to find more boxes of sweets in the kitchen cupboards either, but he was slightly taken aback by the little hoard in the fucking broom closet.

“There is too much goddamn candy in this house. What are these?”

“Pixie Stix,” Matt answered, sounding forlorn.

“These things are crazy, you’re one step away from hooking an IV to your veins. This isn’t even candy, Matthew, this is pure sugar in a plastic tube.”

“When you say that, you have this tone. Like that could somehow be bad.”

These things were the straws that literally might break his back. They were history.

**

The rest of Saturday was blissful. John had a beer and a nap in the afternoon and came out of it feeling like a million. But Sunday…

Matt spent more time standing in front of the refrigerator with the door open and wandering the house distractedly than working. He had responded to the sugar embargo by doubling up on his Red Bull consumption yesterday and now he was out.

John would have expected the kid to mellow out, be able to concentrate. But if anything he seemed even _more_ twitchy and distracted, if such a thing were possible.

Matt drifted listlessly around the house like a ghost, and jumped in surprise every time John spoke to him. Any attempt at conversation was met with a dazed ‘huh?’ and usually ended with some other one-syllable response.

Work going ok? -- Yeah.  
Something wrong? -- No.  
Whatcha workin’ on? -- Meh.

The worst was when John gave up trying to drag the words out of him and then Matt wouldn’t say anything at all. He’d come out of the office, stand around and fidget -- picking at his clothes and fingernails, tugging agitatedly on his hair. He showed up several times to look perplexed and stare silently, while John took out the trash and sat on the sofa sorting through some old magazines he ought to throw away.

At some point in the afternoon he muttered something about a headache and gave up on his computers and went upstairs.

And John couldn’t handle it. He admitted defeat. He cursed himself for being a big old marshmallow and took pity on the kid.

**

Sure enough, John felt his heart clench and melt like cheap chocolate when he got up there with his little offering and found Matt sprawled like a ragdoll on their bed, with an arm thrown over his eyes. John pulled the blinds before he came to join Matt on the bed, dimming the bright winter sun beaming into the room a little.

“What’s this?”

“Are you serious? This is peanut brittle. What were you, raised by wolves?”

“I’ll thank you not to talk about my mother that way, McClane. I believe my family prefers the term ‘residentially flexible canine’.”

John snapped off a piece of the hard, toffee-coloured brittle and handed it over.

“Whoa, _sweet_.” Matt said this like a criticism when he tasted the slab of candy, but he made it disappear pretty darn quick.

The effect was almost immediate. John couldn’t help but smile a little as he watched Matt visibly perk up, propping himself up on an elbow and reaching for another piece.

“Oh beloved sugar buzz, don’t ever leave me again.” Matt settled back on his pillow and went to work on his second helping. “Yes! That sizzling, diabetic sensation in my veins? God I’ve missed this.”

There was a certain sensation John had been missing in the last couple of days, too.

“I can practically _hear_ my teeth rotting. You know this stuff isn’t half bad?”

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen peanut brittle before.”

“In real life? You know I was born _after_ they took Leave it to Beaver off the air, right?”

“If you didn’t want any more, all you had to do was say so.”

“No! Nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-no!” Matt exclaimed hurriedly, rolling over on top of John, in an attempt to keep him from getting out of the bed. It was working. And not just because the kid actually had him pinned.

“When I said ‘what’s this’ I meant what’s with the secret stash of illegal contraband?” Matt explained, settling comfortably into John’s side, when he was satisfied both John and the tin of sweets weren’t going anywhere. “I thought there was ‘too much goddamn candy’ in this house?”

“Yeah? Well my blood sugar was low, officer. Didn’t know what I was saying.”

“Mmm,” Matt nodded. “That’ll happen. I guess I can let you go with a warning this time. I mean it’s not like I’m calling you a hypocrite or anything like that-- oh, wait, no, it’s pretty much _exactly_ like that.”

“You know what _I_ miss? At least when you were stuffing all that high-fructose corn syrup in your face, it was _quiet_ around here.”

“Well, now that’s a problem. And I’m pretty sure there’s a solution but, hmmm, I just can’t seem to think what. Let me see. I’m thinking. Real hard.”

“Matt.”

“Here we are, two guys in a bed.”

“ _Matt_.”

“With an entire box of candy. Where, oh where…”

“Matthew.”

“…will we ever find something to put in my mouth?”

“Kid!!”

Matt finally went quiet, but the tight-lipped smile and raised brows told John it wouldn’t last long.

John put down the tin of brittle and rolled them over so Matt was under him, grinning up at him triumphantly. John figured they could _start_ with his tongue.

“Shut the hell up and gimme some sugar already.”

FIN  


 

 

 

___________________

'Snick, December 2010


End file.
